a huge goal of mine this year was to attend the invite-only rewardStyle Conference that’s held in Dallas every year for the top 200 or so fashion bloggers. that means i had to work my tail off in 2016 to meet certain sales criteria. invitations went out the end of January this year and i was so thrilled to be included! it was such a great learning experience to be in Dallas, meet so many of my favorite blogger babes IRL, and connect with the rewardStyle team. i owe a lot of my success with rewardStyle campaigns to this conference and have already made it a goal to be invited to the 2018 rS Conference too!

2. our first Europe trip together

robbie had never been to Europe before this summer so i couldn’t wait to explore together! it worked out perfectly because i had never been to London and that was our first stop. probably our favorite memory was the day we had an ultimate Harry Potter day: a day-long tour of Warner Bros studios in the countryside where the movies were filmed and then in the evening we attended the critically acclaimed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child performance in the West End. we loved everything about London and can’t wait to go back. we then headed off to Paris and enjoyed the City of Love hand-in-hand. it was so fun seeing new places together & soaking up all the different cultures.

3. hitting 100K on IG & celebrating with a diamond ring giveaway

hitting 100,000 followers on Instagram was a milestone we had been working toward for years. it was actually kind of surreal to finally reach it. in order to celebrate and thank you all for your support, we collaborated with our good friends at Jeff White Custom Jewelry to design two stunning rings {check them out here} and give one away to a lucky follower. the giveaway was a huge success and thanks to all of you who participated! to make it even better, a handful of my friends threw me the sweetest surprise party to celebrate my success.

4. both of us signing with agents

robbie and i both hit huge career milestones this year by signing with agents. robbie signed with a literary agent in New York to represent his work and help him get a book deal with a major publisher. i signed with Aperture Talent, the influencer division of Wilhelmina Models, also based in NYC. signing with Aperture has allowed us to focus more on creating great content for Sassy Red Lipstick and connect with dream brands. we’ve already got some really exciting partnerships in the works and i can’t wait to see what 2018 will bring!

5. meeting and becoming friends with my idol: Iskra Lawrence

if you would have told me at the beginning of the year that i would end up meeting my body-positive role model Iskra and then actually becoming friends with her, i would have laughed. but that’s what happens when you seize opportunities and make things happen! Iskra did an open casting call for a YouTube project and we created a video to submit. she ended up choosing me as one of ten to participate in NYC one weekend. we got to hang out with Iskra during the shoot and then after we went for cheesecake and just chatted for hours. it was so fun and i’m so glad to have made a genuine, positive friend like her.

6. attending Miami Swim Week

being one of the few curvy bloggers who consistently promotes body positivity at the pool/beach, i wanted to attend the famous Miami Swim Week and represent all us curvy girls! my favorite part was attending the Sports Illustrated show and seeing them include several curvy models on the runway. robbie and i enjoyed attending all the shows together, and then turned the work trip into a few days of vacation by driving to Palm Beach. our stay at the legendary Brazilian Court was so relaxing and we can’t wait to go back.

7. going viral

this was definitely the most unforeseen achievement of the year and probably the biggest in terms of how many people it reached. robbie’s viral Instagram post about me in August ended up receiving over 1 million impressions on Instagram and 227,000 reactions on his Facebook. it catapulted us into the spotlight nationally and internationally for a few weeks, landing us on Good Morning America, BBC Radio, People, TODAY, CNN, E! News, POPSUGAR, Glamour, and countless other major outlets. it was definitely a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, positives and negatives, and turned August into an absolute circus for us. fortunately, we came out of it with so many new friends and followers who we’ve loved having around ever since!

this had been a goal of mine ever since i started my blog and this year we finally made it happen. we made all the preparations and then flew out Corbin Ballard to shoot the whole video in one whirlwind day around San Francisco. the finished product speaks for itself and i couldn’t be more proud of it. having a video that defines this dream of mine is so fun and i’d love for you all to watch it if you haven’t already!

9. five trips to New York City

i’ve been in love with NYC ever since interning there my last year of college, and i’m so glad that i now have a career that takes me there several times a year. going to New York Fashion Week is always a whirlwind of a week but so fun to feel the buzz and connect with some of my favorite bloggers and brands. attending both Fashion Weeks, working with Iskra, signing with Aperture/Wilhelmina, and attending a Fashion Masterclass at Instagram NY were all amazing things that took me to the Big Apple this year. Robbie & i finally traveled there together in July, and i loved showing him around all of my very favorite spots. we again went back with my family for Thanksgiving where i was able to check off attending the Macy’s Day Parade off my bucket list!

10. becoming an #AerieReal girl

partnering with Aerie was a huge goal of mine for 2017 because i love their body positive message so much and wanted to be a part of their mission to promote real, beautiful women of all shapes and sizes. i was so excited when the brand reached out to me for their Love The Swim You’re In campaign, which ended up getting me featured on Cosmopolitan! i worked with Aerie a couple more times throughout the year and each time was met with so much love, support, and body positivity.

bonus: big career moves
i wanted to make this list more about memories than career accomplishments, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate the two considering that sharing our lives on social media is our career! this list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the incredible growth of our careers, individually and together. this year we completed successful collaborations with Nike {here & here}, Walmart, COVERGIRL, Nordstrom Rack, Alaska Air, and other awesome brands. i was featured in Shape, Cosmopolitan, and Women’s Health, while robbie became a contributor to Entrepreneur.com and achieved his goal of giving a TEDx talk. 2017 was without a doubt a breakout year for us and we can’t wait for 2018!

JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.

3 Comments

Heather

Watching you and Robbie go after, achieve and then live your goals and dreams is such an inspiration. It reminds me that no matter what your goals are hard work and taking risks pays off. And that dreaming big is never, ever a bad thing :)

Congrats on such a wonderful, successful year full of fabulous memories. Looking forward to seeing where 2018 takes you all.